Tag: forgiveness

Not so long ago, I was known by another name on Twitter – that account was called Prince Eggnog (@PrinceEggnog). The story of how that name came about, I will save for another day. This blog article is the story of some of the mistakes that I have made as a client of escorts. That story needs a revelation, and that revelation is that Percival Blakeney and Prince Eggnog are one and the same anonymous client.

Why does this even matter? The reason is simple, Prince Eggnog was my first ‘anonymous’ Twitter account as a client and I made a bucket-load of mistakes during that period. I am still making many mistakes today, but no attempt to write about my short-comings and the lessons that I have had as a client would be complete without Prince Eggnog. Time to deal with some ‘egg on my face’.

Having an active social media profile as a client.

My first mistake was having any social media profile at all. For a while, I was an anonymous client, reading profiles, reading escort social media and booking some escorts and starting to see some regulars. This is probably the most typical client approach on social media – radio silence! Communication was for the most part by text messages, with limited contact between bookings. It was a wonderful time, full of brand new experiences. Although I was making plenty of mistakes as a new client, they were largely invisible – I wasn’t, at least as far as I know, making any ‘public’ mistakes.

Then I was nearly ‘outed’ twice, and an escort suggested that I set up an ‘anonymous Twitter account’, and use that for some of my communications. The Twitter account of Prince Eggnog was named and born. Being ‘anonymous’ never sat that comfortably with me, but like the early days of seeing escorts, the early day’s of having a social media account were exciting. My activity primarily centered around discourse with escorts, other clients and related sex-work accounts. This social media activity had its own level of taboo, intrigue, additional industry learning, and it was nice to have another place to engage with the escorts that I had met, and to learn more about other escorts that I hoped to meet. I have already written about becoming ‘Addicted to Escorts’, I also became addicted to the industry’s social media. Having a ‘client profile’ on social media opens up a whole new territory for making mistakes, and what is worse, these mistakes are there for everyone to see.

Making public social media mistakes!

I hope that for the most part, I make a pretty decent client. I certainly care about all of the escorts that I have met, and I care about the industry. It hurts when bad things happen. I feel disgusted by bad client behaviour, disappointed by the nastier side of the industry, sad when people are trolled, bullied and upset, and I feel happy when people are having a great time. I feel especially happy when I am having a great time. One of my biggest mistakes is that I thought other people would like seeing escorts and clients having a great time. Unfortunately that is not always, or even often, the case.

Celebrating escort-client bookings.

I thought I could ‘celebrate’ my journey as a client on social media. I thought that when an escort gave their permission, showing that a ‘great booking’ had occurred would be a nice thing to do. After all, this sort of ‘booking recap’ content is published all the time. Well I was wrong. I knew when I saw similar posts with other clients, when they were out with escorts that I adored, I felt my own ‘pang of jealousy’ – why wasn’t it me, was I still a liked client, why did I have to see that when I was having a bad day, or any other version of normal human envy. Then that thought would pass, and I would think how happy I was that an escort that I liked had been treated well and their business and the broader industry was good. People were having fun – and isn’t that how it should be? I would also look forward to my own next booking with that person, and I even grew to respect (and learn from) some of the better behaviours, client generosity and booking ideas of the more experienced clients out there than me.

I know many people feel like that, but there is also a very nasty side to escort-client social media. I was accused of being a ‘show-off’, of trying to have escorts compete for my bookings, of lying, of being a ‘man-slut’, of being a ‘disease-spreader’, or trying to move the power dynamic away from escorts and into the hands of clients. I was accused of far worse than that. I was threatened to be ‘outed’, black-listed, slandered on escort forums, and I even had a laughable death threat. I don’t know whether I am an idiot, but none of those things bothered me that much, there was only one thing that actually really upset me – and that it is why I shut down the Prince Eggnog account. I was worried that I was ‘Hurting Feelings’, a topic I have written about in the past. I became aware that for some of the escorts that I was extremely close too, my activity was actually hurting their feelings. This isn’t an ego thing, I didn’t break anyone’s heart (I hope), it was simply annoying to them, and for that reason I shut it down. In my mind, that account did not provide enough benefit to me, to warrant hurting the feelings of anyone else, even in a small way.

Even bigger mistakes were in store!

It gets worse. At one point, I asked publicly on Twitter if any escort would like to attend a concert with me. This is a complicated story, perhaps destined for its own article one day. In short, I had a spare ticket to a concert. I asked a regular of mine at the time who wasn’t interested. Then in a profoundly stupid moment, I put out a public Twitter post asking if anyone was interested. Realizing that a loud rock concert wasn’t the ideal place for a first booking, I got cold feet and asked (in private) three escorts that I knew much better if they were interested. Two said yes. In mishandling this ‘concert ticket’ fiasco, I eventually lost my client relationship with the two escorts who said yes, the one who originally said no, and the respect of a number of other people on Twitter.

What you do publicly can have very profound and long-lasting consequences. There are so many lessons from that one badly thought through incident, perhaps the biggest, is that even though the whole industry is full of ‘competition’, just like any industry or market, don’t create competition or the perception of competition, even if that is not the intention. Clients seeming to create competition, even though they probably don’t know that they are, is a far from an ideal scenario. I have suffered from that one action more than anyone else involved, probably more than anyone knows or will ever know, and I am still suffering from the consequences of that saga even now many, many months later.

So how many lessons does it take?

You would think the ‘concert fiasco’ would be enough – oh no, when it comes to slow learners, I can be among the slowest. Not that much later, I had a lunch-booking cancelled on me on the morning of the booking. I had (and still have) no issue with that at all, the escort in question had no choice, and I was not upset by the cancellation. I have never yet been upset by a cancellation. We ended up catching up eventually and she still lets me see her, something that I am thrilled about. I did however have a nice lunch planned for that day, and I was already in the hotel room when the lunch was cancelled.

Yes, you know where this is going already, I put a public Twitter post out to see if any local escort was free to take up the same-day booking. Let’s not spend too long on this, but the lesson is largely the same. Escorts can try to get a late replacement for cancelled bookings through public forums, clients cannot. In the escort-client world, it isn’t like other industries, a good client makes it seem like it is a date and not a purchase. It is about the fantasy and the experience more than the reality. Unintentionally, I made it look like a purchase and a competitive one at that. So there is the answer, sometimes it takes me at least two big mistakes to learn one simple lesson. Client’s shouldn’t use public social media to fill an escort booking – lesson learned.

Other mistakes and learning experiences.

I can see that this topic is going to be one with many chapters. I am not even close to outlining how many missteps and faux pas I have made. So there will probably be more articles on mistakes in the future. One I think I will need to write about is the idea that there are ‘No Nice Endings’. I don’t want this to sound negative, but usually when there are no more bookings between a client and an escort that have had a long history together, the reason is likely to be negative. Unless there is a ‘retirement’, the ceasing of a regular or semi-regular client-escort relationship is normally the result of something negative happening. I have hinted at this in ‘What Went Wrong?’, and ‘Escort Relationship Breakdowns’, however I think the conversation about ‘what can be learned’ in these situations still needs some attention (in my mind at least).

My biggest mistakes!

Easily my biggest mistakes are simple to describe but harder to avoid. When the client-escort relationship is a strong one, it is pretty easy to get hurt. I have spoken about ‘Hurt Feelings’ in a past blog article. In this case, the mistake is a simple one, when I have been hurt by an escort – and that certainly happens to any regular and caring client – there are times that I have not handled the hurt well. Escort-client relationships are a fantasy, they are a pretend perfect world, they are this way so that the ‘moment together’ in the framework of a booking can be this perfect place, a perfect fantasy moment given a temporary place in reality. I should have processed and eliminated the hurt I felt and moved on. My mistake is when I have felt the pain too much, and as a result I have either unintentionally shown that I am in pain, or worse yet reflected that pain back to the escort that I care about – it is the ‘care level’ that allows the pain to be created in the first place.

Almost every one of my ‘endings’ with an escort is the expression of this lesson as yet still a work-in-progress with me. Being too needy, or the opposite position of being too hurt or upset, is very likely to damage or end the connection. While it is an ‘escort-client’ relationship, it needs to stay within relationship parameters that have limited tolerances for the expression of pain, anger or hurt. The escort or the client will leave if it looks like being too much like a ‘real relationship’, unless both have agreed that is where it is headed. For the escort-client relationship to continue it needs to remain a close-to-perfect ‘fantasy’ – no residual hurt allowed. It doesn’t mean that ‘hurt’ can’t happen, it just means that it needs to be resolved, forgotten, forgiven or otherwise dealt with very, very quickly. Someone needs to move past the negativity, let it go, or else it is all over.

I have ‘blown-up’ some great client-escort relationships and some escorts have blown up ones with me. I have a couple of connections that have been put-at-risk, I only hope that I have learned this lesson in time. I don’t want to lose anyone else.

Moving on from my mistakes!

I am happy to consign Prince Eggnog to the past, it was part of my experience, part of my growth, and it came with both huge enjoyment and almost equally acute pain. I do sometimes wonder why certain people never forgave me for my mistakes. I know there are ‘unforgivable sins’ in the escort-client world, although I have never (and will never) commit any of those. For some reason however, client mistakes in public are not forgivable in the eyes of certain escorts and other clients. I do sometimes feel that Prince Eggnog was unfairly treated in some circles, even though it was true that he was more of a ‘Town-Fool’ than a Prince.

Now you know what (or who) came before Percival Blakeney. That is not to say that my new client persona is any better. I am still making plenty of mistakes, I am still upsetting people, I am still being trolled from time to time and I am still learning. I will be writing more about my mistakes, past, present and future – because part of this experience, part of this journey, is continuing to learn.

If I have ever upset you, I do sincerely apologize. I promise that it was without malice and I regret any mistake that I ever made that led to any hurt. I have never deliberately hurt any escort. Forgive me if you can. I forgive anyone who has hurt me on this journey because you are on your own journey too. After all, there is still too much fun to be had to get caught up in sadness.

Thank you for your readership. You don’t need to share any mistakes, maybe sharing mistakes is another new mistake all of its own, but thank you in advance for any comments and feedback. Thank you to everyone who played the game with Prince Eggnog, and those who went the extra mile with that story – you know who you are and I thank you from the bottom of my heart! R.I.P. Prince Eggnog (2016-2017).

About this blog

I don't speak for anyone but myself and my personal journey as an Australian client of sexworkers.
You won't find names, secrets or any identifiable or intimate details. This is just the journey of one lonely and uninteresting client. The stories are real and so are the emotions, thoughts and comments.
Client voices are rare, but that doesn't mean this will be interesting - that's for you to decide. If you don't like what you read, then leave.